


June 10th, 2016

by Agf



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series), S.W.A.T. (TV 2017), S.W.A.T. - All Media Types, Watcher Entertainment
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Recreational Drug Use, UFOs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-19
Updated: 2020-03-19
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:48:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23215789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Agf/pseuds/Agf
Summary: Eric and Ira - the day it all starts
Relationships: Eric (S.W.A.T)/Ira (S.W.A.T), Eric/Ira, Ryan Bergara & Shane Madej, Ryan Bergara/Shane Madej
Comments: 4
Kudos: 60





	June 10th, 2016

**Author's Note:**

> If you didn’t see the boys' SWAT ep yet may I direct you to: queerunsolved's tumblr post/612985025360691200/imagine
> 
> anyway my excuse for this is: I’m on lockdown / I have no self control / I just love when they play characters / I saw Ryan in that outfit and my common sense left the building / they have goddamn matching haircuts (delete as appropriate)

It starts like this. 

Eric gets the call that his last outstanding journalism application has been rejected - something about _unfortunately, the course proved extremely popular this year_ , or some other vague ‘it’s not you, it’s us’ reason. Ira is only half listening, really, because he knows Eric wanted the spot, but he can’t help but feel like, deep down, he would’ve hated it. 

Not that he claims to think for the guy for anything, but he just can’t imagine Eric being happy chasing down leads on the mall’s latest cart thief, or ‘coming at you live!’ from the scene of a spate of missing garden gnomes. 

“World’s bigger than some pokey local news joint,” he says, interrupting Eric’s ranting to pass off the joint they’re sharing. 

Eric offers him an unimpressed look, but he takes it, and his head drops back against the window as he fills his lungs. “I don’t want to sit in some office,” he complains. “I want to be in _front_ of the camera, Ira, I want-- That’s what I want.” He takes another drag before he hands the joint back, and lets the smoke trickle slowly from his nose. 

They sit like that for a while longer, letting the world go hazy at the edges as the weed kicks in and the sun starts to dip lower in the sky. 

Ira stretches his legs out and nudges Eric’s calf when it looks like he’s passed from angry to just kind of maudlin. “Hey.”

“Hmm?” Eric wraps his fingers around Ira’s ankle, holding him still. It’s nice, a little spot of warmth. 

“Who says you need some trainee position to do that, anyway?” 

Eric snorts. 

“I mean it, man,” Ira says, sitting up. He reluctantly pulls back his leg, so he’s free to stand up and fetch his laptop. “We could do this. Just-- How hard can it be?”

“I don’t think anyone’s gonna be interested in seeing our shitty attempts at video-journalism,” Eric replies, but he’s smiling as he says so, half-glowing in the sunset light streaming in through the window. “But thanks.” 

Ira disagrees. Not because he thinks Eric has a god-given talent, or anything. Shit, he still thinks he’d get bored of it in a matter of weeks. He just thinks they could pull it off, the two of them. 

If Eric asked, Ira would probably make most things happen. 

“Hey - you got any beer?” Eric asks, suddenly, standing up with a stretch. “If I’m going to be job-hunting again next week, might as well spend my last few free days making the most of it.” 

Ira is distracted, looking at the price of camera units online. They’re expensive, sure, but not impossibly so. He could bankroll this - his parents are still funding his ‘time out’ post-graduation, so it wouldn’t even really be a stretch. Spend a little less on _extra-curriculars_ for a month or so… 

Which reminds him. He looks up to catch Eric staring at him, a smile twitching at the side of his mouth, and grins back. “Some beer,” Ira nods, “something better, too.” 

Eric raises his eyebrows, rocking back on his heels. “Oh?”

“I got a new guy. Good stuff.” Ira tosses the laptop to one side and tugs open his bedside drawer, coming up with a baggie filled with little paper tabs. “What do you say?” 

He watches as Eric silently weighs up the pros and cons before he says, “What the hell. Let’s do it.” 

“Put your shoes back on,” Ira instructs, “this stuff is better done in fresh air.” 

* * *

They spread a couple towels out in Ira’s backyard and lay back. The acid leaves a strange taste in his mouth, almost bitter, but it doesn’t take long for it to kick in. It feels like his eyes are lenses, zooming in on the stars, then back out again, the ground underneath his back is wobbling like they’re laying on a water bed. 

“Feel that?” Ira asks, turning his head to the side to watch Eric’s profile, the rise and fall of his chest.

“Yeah,” he replies, reaching up with one hand. “Man I could almost-- Right there, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Ira replies. He doesn’t know what Eric’s talking about, but he also _does know_ , y’know? He watches as blooms of colour dance down from the sky and prickle over Eric’s skin, lighting him up like a disco. It’s like the lights outside are reaching down and prickling at the light _inside_ him, until Ira realises he’s laying next to a goddamn sunbeam. 

Occasionally, while Ira’s in the middle of this big, earth-shattering epiphany, Eric will laugh at something he sees in the stars. And it’s… The laugh strokes over his skin like velvet. 

Or is it silk?

Something soft. It’s not important. It's enough to just lie there and feel it while time slows down around them. 

“Holy shit, you see that?” Eric says, breaking the silence, grabbing at Ira’s arm. He hums, and follows Eric’s eyes up to the sky. “What is that?” Eric breathes. 

Ira can see the stars kind of swaying, like they’re caught in waves, or- or like the sky is breathing. “What is what?” he asks. 

“The UFO! Don’t you see it?” Eric scrambles to his feet, a little uncoordinated, and points up at the sky. 

And, suddenly, Ira _can_ see it. A bright light, up beyond the stars, getting clearer and clearer the closer it gets. “What the hell.” 

Eventually it hovers over them, and Ira grips onto Eric to make sure they’re still here, together, still seeing this. Eric responds by leaning back into him, a line of warmth all down his front as he cranes his head back to look at the thing in the sky, his mouth open as he stares. 

It’s a weird shape, Ira decides, the light. Kind of oblong? Whoever heard of an oblong UFO? He snorts quietly, and Eric hushes him, like he might offend the aliens if he laughs outright. 

The UFO flickers a little, and Ira blinks hard, but he can’t focus on it anymore. “Is it leaving?” he asks. 

“Yeah,” Eric replies after a moment. “Look, it’s going. It’s going upwards.” 

A few more seconds and it’s gone, and they’re left clutching one another in the dark backyard, faces numb from the cold and world still curling weirdly at the edges with the trip. 

“Jesus, man, that was… Aliens,” Eric breathes. He tilts his head round to look at him, and there’s something awed and giddy in his face. 

“Aliens,” Ira agrees. “Just- right there. What was that, six minutes?” 

“Yeah,” Eric agrees, no hesitation. “We just saw _aliens_! This is huge!” His grip on Ira’s arms is very tight. His smile is so, so wide. “We need to tell people about this,” he says suddenly, glancing around like someone else might be in the yard, waiting to listen. 

Maybe it’s the trip, maybe it’s just what happens when you have a really, really good idea, but Ira actually feels the earth under his feet shift and click into place as he looks down at his friend. “This is what we need to do,” he says. “We should investigate this. Right?” 

“Yeah!” 

“No, I mean, like, on camera. Like _journalists._ ” He puts a lot of sauce on that last word, because he wants to make sure Eric knows what he’s suggesting. “I bet there’s loads of stuff the government is hiding from us. We could find it!” 

“On camera,” Eric says, and he’s nodding, and when he crashes into Ira and knocks the wind out of him with the force of his hug, Ira can’t bring himself to do anything except punch the sky. 

“You hear that aliens!” He shouts, and the silky feeling of Eric’s laugh dances over the skin of his chest again. “We’re coming for ya!” 


End file.
